VILLA boss Martin O'Neill believes his team can expect to be competing with a number of clubs chasing European glory as the season progresses over the crucial festive programme.

VILLA boss Martin O'Neill believes his team can expect to be competing with a number of clubs chasing European glory as the season progresses over the crucial festive programme.

Villa have blitzed into the top six on a run of four straight wins but O'Neill is not getting carried away.

With Arsenal lying in wait to burst their bubble tomorrow, O'Neill can see half a dozen sides trying to close the gap on the 'Big Four'.

"Take away the top four sides in the last few years and you are then talking about Tottenham Hotspur and Everton - the only side in recent times to have broken into the top four. Then, after that, it would depend who got a decent run at it.

"Blackburn have been very consistent over the last couple of seasons, and I think that is a great testament to them, and Portsmouth are also really fantastic at this time."

Villa are just three points behind second-placed Manchester United, but O'Neill can also see a couple of defeats allowing 14thplaced Tottenham, 15 points adrift of Villa, making up lost ground.

He added: "There are a lot of teams. West Ham are getting their players back now, and you always feel Tottenham are capable of winning four on the trot."

Despite the Big Four are again occupying the top five places, sandwiching Manchester City, and in a season where Blackburn in ninth are 10 points clear of 12th-placed Fulham, O'Neill says it is too early to divide the Premiership into three inner 'leagues'.

"I am not sure you can catego-rise it into three different leagues," the Villa boss continued. "Some of those sides, like Tottenham and Everton, feel in any given season they are capable of competing."

O'Neill admits the current league table has not followed the pattern of previous years. There is a gap at this moment, which actually, if you looked at the league table for the last eight or nine years, would be unusual," he said.

"It would be unusual for the 12th team, Fulham, to have less points than games played (played 14, points 13). That would be quite surprising, and I don't really know what to make of it.

"Let's say 19 points from 12 games would have put you seventh, I am just suprised the way the league is panning out this season, so far. But by the end of the day it will rectify itself."